Boards
Naive childhood questions (that set the boundaries of human existence)
the extension of an idea from 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'...
I'll start (and hopefully people will follow with their own...).
#1 - What if I were born as an inanimate object?
this one pulls at the threads of human consciousness. I first had the thought walking home from school one day, aged six or seven, staring up at lamposts - "what if I was born as a lampost rather than a person?" - lost in precocious abstraction.
it still throws me through a loop. I was earnestly pondering what it would be like to be a lampost rather than a human being (somewhat dull, but kind of voyeuristic? low self-esteem due to the territorial behaviour of local stray animals? yearning to uproot from my stationary, uniform life and backpack around Asia for a few years?), but recalling the thought later in life, it kind of pulled the rug from under my certainty re: existence as
a sentient creature.
which lead onto thinking about what makes a person who they are, beneath all they experience, if there's some essential singular part of a person, indivisible and pure, or if it's just illusory. what if it was a different sperm cell, a different egg? one half the gametes of a different person altogether?
which naturally lead to a whole lot of existential tossing and turning. no wonder my mother never gave me a proper answer. all from some innocent childhood whimsy.
any more for any more?